


A Return to Whitehall

by narcissablaxk



Category: Turn (TV 2014)
Genre: A return to Setauket, Closure, F/M, Horseback Riding, Post-War, Science, Star Gazing, Sword Fighting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-18
Updated: 2017-07-18
Packaged: 2018-12-03 21:25:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11540721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/narcissablaxk/pseuds/narcissablaxk
Summary: With the war over, Edmund Hewlett returns to Setauket and to Whitehall to pursue his one true love: science. Unfortunately, his other love has also returned to Setauket, and it's only a matter of time before they cross paths and inevitably relive their parts in the war.





	A Return to Whitehall

**Author's Note:**

> Lots of love to Grumblebee, who let me rant about this piece in her messages and constantly helped me along. She's the reason I finished this, and the reason that it's so long.

Abraham made good on his promise to deliver the deed to Whitehall to Edmund’s possession only a few weeks after Simcoe’s death. He met him in Rivington’s, his eyes continuously straying to Robert Townsend’s silhouette at the bar, a stern set to his mouth. Edmund held the fragile parchment in his hands, Abraham’s signature at the bottom, for a long time. Whitehall had always felt like a home to him, probably because of the hospitality that Richard had exuded during Edmund’s stay there, but now it probably felt like a mausoleum. He considered the paper for a moment more before he turned his eyes to Abraham, who was watching him with a sort of absent resentment. If Whitehall felt like a home to Edmund, it certainly felt more like a home to Abraham, and thus even more like a cemetery. 

He didn’t want to broach a subject that would upset him, especially because Abraham always seemed on edge when he was around, but nevertheless, he cleared his throat. “Don’t you want to…to remove your belongings or…find a keepsake?” he asked Abraham, his eyes falling to the deed again. 

The smaller man, who had already stood and turned away from him in his haste to leave their encounter behind, paused. “A keepsake?” he asked, and suddenly, the word was an expletive. “I don’t want anything from that house.” 

He said it, as Abraham always did, with venom and a narrow-eyed stare that had always reminded Edmund of the rats he would find in the stables in Scotland. After years of trying to decipher him, Edmund finally understood it. Abraham straightened his shoulders in his red coat, the uniform still shockingly out of place on his person, and Edmund mirrored his movement.

“I am sorry,” he said tentatively, and pressed forward hastily as Abraham huffed and tried to walk away. “I truly am sorry about what happened to Richard.” Abraham stopped but didn’t turn around. “He was a…dear friend.” He considered getting up, to meet Abraham’s eyes, but he couldn’t bring himself to exert the energy. This conversation alone felt too heavy for standing.

“He ruined your wedding,” Abraham pointed out, a cruel twist to his mouth. “And he almost let me hang.” He opened his mouth like he was going to say more, to list his father’s sins as far as he could before he ran out of breath, but nothing came out. 

Edmund managed a wry smile at the memories. “He did, but didn’t we invite all of those consequences on ourselves?” 

“That’s not an excuse,” Abraham’s eyes jumped up as Townsend came near their table, but mercifully, the man slid by and refilled the tankard of the officers behind them, dutifully not acknowledging them both.

“It’s not wise to speak ill of the dead, Abraham,” Edmund chided gently. When Abraham didn’t speak, but turned around again, more decisively this time, Edmund said, very quietly. “It is okay to miss him.” 

Abraham did not respond, but sidled through the tables full of officers and out the door, ignoring Townsend standing askance at the bar, obviously waiting for him. Edmund wondered, in the absent way he often thought about people long gone, like Richard, and his own father, where Abraham would live when the war was over. Already the man felt like a phantom, a remnant of a time long past; the deed in his hand was all the evidence he had of Abraham’s existence even while his footsteps still lingered in the dirt outside the door. 

There was very little left for Abraham in Setauket, unless he wanted to try farming again. Edmund did not believe for a moment that he truly knew Abraham well, but he did know him enough to be almost certain that he would never set foot on Long Island again. 

The notion itself was melancholic. 

Very gently, he folded up the deed and placed in the inside pocket of his coat. At least now, when the dreadful war ended, he had a place to call home. 

***

When Edmund returned to Setauket, he expected everything to look different; perhaps he expected an optimistic ray of sunshine to brighten the little backwater with a happy glow. But the skies were grey, as they often were before he left, and the familiar paths through the town were damp and riddled with muddy tracks. Nothing had really changed, he noted as he glanced around. He recognized most of the faces he passed, though no one greeted him. He expected he looked different, without the red coat, without the powdered wig. 

Whitehall looked how he felt; derelict, old, and forgotten. Aberdeen had long since been relocated to another house, and in her absence, most of the house descended into a dust-laden ghost of its former self. He wrinkled his nose at it, but he knew that cleaning it up would be a task to which he would rise, and it would give him a reprieve from thinking about the war and his future. 

Truth be told, he hadn’t thought this far ahead. As so many other people involved in war, the battles felt never-ending; there was no life after it, only the action of the moment. Now that it was over, everything moved slower, things were both easier and so much harder. He had so many people after his head during the war that he imagined he wouldn’t make it to the end, much less have a home to return to. But here he was, with a home but no one in it. 

He spent the first few days cleaning by himself, relishing in the way the work made him forget about everything else. But once he finished, once he set up his telescope in the yard, and once he allowed himself to hire new staff, he found that he had…nothing to do anymore. 

He found he could go days without talking to someone; his staff (a widow from the war and her young son) worked often in silence and in rooms he wasn’t occupying. He remembered, with an ironic roll of his eyes, how he had romanticized this when the war was at its worst, when he didn’t want to fight anymore. This was supposed to be his dream, finding solace and enlightenment in the quiet, with nothing but science. 

But science rarely spoke back, and his horses were only a small comfort. 

He took to doing his own shopping in town if only so he could have some company. He went once a week, on Wednesdays, to get all he needed. Soon, he had a few acquaintances, like the woman that sold him grain, or the man that sold flour. They didn’t ask his name, so he never learned theirs. He rather liked it this way, at least that’s what he told himself. 

He overheard that Benjamin Tallmadge had returned to Setauket with Caleb Brewster to make sure their lands had been legally sold, but he hadn’t seen them. He remembered their faces well; Tallmadge, with the long hair and broad shoulders and Brewster, with the cheeky smile and unruly beard. He wasn’t sure they’d remember him, but he didn’t want to take that chance. 

He wasn’t sure what he was afraid of, though when he asked himself that question, the answer was always Anna Strong. 

Had she told them about him, when she went to the rebel camp? Surely they’d heard about their failed wedding, her forged divorce papers. Perhaps it would be more painful if he learned they didn’t know of him, that Anna had never even spoken his name after she left. But that couldn’t be true, he thought. She disobeyed her orders to see him, she wrote to him. 

But it had been for her precious rebel cause, he knew that now. He was a side effect, a necessary risk. Nevertheless, he kept his eyes open for her, just in case. If Tallmadge and Brewster had returned, if only for a day, surely she would come back too. 

***

It was another several months before he caught sight of her in the town, her long dark hair pinned up the exact same way he remembered it. She was talking to someone, her shoulders stiff; Edmund had to resist the urge to turn on his heel and walk home. But no – he needed feed for the horses and apples. 

He steeled himself and walked past her, hoping he could get far enough away that she wouldn’t call out to him, but – 

“Major – I mean…oh I suppose I could still call you major, couldn’t I?” 

She was looking at him with that slope in her brow that he remembered: she was nervous. He wanted to assuage her nerves, to give her an encouraging smile, but all of that would be worse for him when she inevitably left. Instead, he inclined his head at her, almost a bow, and kept his face impassive. 

He exhaled at the wrinkle that appeared between her eyebrows at his formality, feeling his shoulders pull with the weight of her presence. “The war is over, Mrs. Strong. I imagine you can call me Hewlett now.” 

She grimaced slightly at the use of her surname, but he pretended he didn’t see it. “I was surprised to hear that you had decided to settle in Setauket, of all places,” she said tentatively, and as he stepped away from her, she fell into step beside him. This was exactly what he didn’t want, he reprimanded himself, but he couldn’t think of a way to extricate himself from her presence. 

“Yes, well, I have a home here,” he said shortly, trying to figure out how to navigate the conversation without making a fool of himself. How could he tell her that this was the only place that felt like home, and now that he was here, he had realized, all too late, that it was her presence that made it a place worth returning? He wouldn’t. “I suppose you heard –”

“Abraham told me,” she confirmed. 

“I –” he floundered, “I didn’t know you and your husband had returned.” 

She definitely grimaced this time. “Yes, well –”

“I thought I heard he was serving in Congress,” he pressed forward, trying to get past the subject of her husband as quickly as possible. Somehow, it was more painful to hear her speak of Selah than for him to do it himself. A gust of wind blew through them both, a prelude to spring, and she tightened the shawl around her shoulders to combat it. 

“He is,” she said, her eyes sliding over to him for a moment before focusing on the uneven ground in front of them. Their short conversation had taken them past the rest of the town and toward the Sound. 

He was unable to keep himself from asking: “If he’s in Congress, then why aren’t you in Philadelphia with him?” 

She paused in her walking, long enough that Edmund almost tripped; he was bad at quick changes in direction with his damaged foot, but before he could comment on her hesitation, she was beside him again, her hand catching him around the elbow before he could stumble. Instead of removing her hand from his elbow, she tucked her hand into the crook of his arm. They continued on their way, as if nothing had changed, despite the fact that Edmund was now hyper-aware of her hand on his arm. 

“Because I live here,” she said simply. 

***

He found her at his stables the next day, a tentative smile bright on her face. She was wearing a green dress that reminded him of the one she wore to Whitehall the first time he invited her. He was both surprised and completely unsurprised to see her there; wasn’t this how it always started for him? A moment of hope and a slow, crushing defeat? 

“Mrs...Strong…” 

“There are a few things that I did in the Continental camp that I miss,” she admitted, her off-hand air marred by the nervous wringing of her hands. “Riding was one of them.” He didn’t have to ask her what she meant; they never really did. Instead, he handed her a bridle and directed her to the stall at the end, where he kept a dapple gray mare. 

“I think you’ll like Andromeda,” he confided with a smile. She grinned back at him, a childish glint in her eyes that he had never seen before. War hadn’t allowed it. He let her lead the way out of the stables, the saddle in one hand and Andromeda’s bridle in the other. The mare followed her willingly, her tail twitching with the excitement of a morning jaunt in the fresh air. 

He expected to have to talk her through the fastening of the saddle, but she was up and mounted before he was even finished, her smile still bright, her hair already falling out of the careful pins. 

“You’re slowing me down, Edmund!” she called as he mounted up, Bucephalus’s reins tight and proper, the usage of his Christian name easy and familiar on her lips. He barely had time to commit her image to memory, the wind lifting the tendrils of her hair around her beaming face, before she was gone, accelerating from a trot to a full gallop too fast for him to be comfortable. With a resigned sigh, he let Bucephalus follow at a brisk canter, and then a gallop. 

She was waiting for him at the edge of the woods, her hair completely out of its pins, her face flushed with excitement. He let her lead them into the woods, onto a trail that she seemed to only see. 

“Can I ask you something?” her voice was soft but he must have been listening for her, because he heard her clearly. “Why didn’t you go home to Scotland?” 

“There’s nothing for me to return to there,” he said easily. “I tried to return during the war and found that my commission was worth next to nothing, and most of the money I had accrued here was only worth anything within these borders. So I returned.” He allowed himself a moment of silence before he asked, “Why did you return?” 

“Because I hate Philadelphia,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. “I spent all of my life in Setauket and then the second half of the war in the Continental camp. I don’t think I’ll ever be happy in a big city.” 

“But your friends -”

“Abraham and Mary are in York City running Rivington’s with Robert Townsend, Ben and Washington are in Philadelphia, and Caleb is somewhere off the coast,” she shrugged. “They all had a purpose when the war ended, and I just...haven’t found mine.” 

She let the silence linger, sharp and painful, for a moment before she cleared her throat. “I saw your telescope,” he could hear the smile in her voice now. “I can’t tell you how many times I looked over the Sound from camp and thought about whether or not you were looking up at the stars.” 

The notion that she thought about him at all during the war felt like a deception, much like most of her kindness. Hadn’t all of her affection been a lie last time? But there was no cause to work for, and no war to win, so why was she being kind to him now?

He didn’t want to ruin it by asking. 

So he didn’t. 

***

He purposely avoided her for the next few days, trying to find moments of solitude so he could consider this turn of events. He didn’t want to encourage what was surely a disaster waiting to happen, but what, exactly, kind of disaster awaited him now? Heartbreak, surely, but what was worse? Friendship, or avoidance? 

Friendship, probably; constant contact with the woman he could never be with would surely be more painful than loneliness. When Wednesday came around, he sent his housekeeper to do the shopping instead of going himself. He expected her back late in the afternoon but she was gently knocking on his study door at only noon. 

“Excuse me, sir, but Mister DeYoung was gone from the tavern this morning and will not return until the afternoon,” she said, her voice soft, as it always was when she stood in his study. “I will return there tonight, if it please you.” 

“DeYoung’s is not a place for a woman alone at night,” he replied. “We do most of our dealing there. I will go.” 

“Of course, sir,” she closed the door behind her so quietly Edmund wasn’t sure it was actually closed. 

Afternoon blended easily into dusk, and the sky was just darkening into a sunset mosaic when Edmund stepped into DeYoung’s tavern, his eyes keenly searching for the sallow, nervous man. The tavern, now that soldiers were not occupying the town, was quiet and only barely occupied, but DeYoung was nowhere to be seen. The place still smelled like stale ale and wet wood, but the tables were considerably cleaner than he remembered. Perhaps DeYoung was just busy. 

“Somehow I find it hard to believe you came here for the ale,” Anna raised an eyebrow from the table that used to house Robeson, a pitcher in her hand. “Looking for someone?” 

“DeYoung, actually,” he said it almost apologetically as Anna’s face fell from amused expectation to confusion. “We have a deal on some seed we’ve yet to close.” 

“No one told you?” she asked, her voice slightly less friendly than before. He was suddenly painfully aware that she knew now he had been purposely avoiding her. “This isn’t DeYoung’s tavern anymore. It’s mine.” 

His own confusion must have amused her, because she turned away to hide her smirk. He followed her back to the bar, where she placed the pitcher of ale underneath the counter and crossed her hands over the wooden top. 

“But...the attainder -” 

“My husband is a Congressman,” she said pointedly, and he felt his jaw tighten at the mention of Selah that she so usually avoided. There was a thin layer of venom to her voice; she still remembered that he was the one that allowed Richard Woodhull to parcel off her lands, her crop, her tavern, and her home while he sent her husband away to a prison ship. “When the war ended, he made sure to reacquisition Strong Manor and our tavern.” 

“And DeYoung just...agreed?” he asked curiously. 

“DeYoung is terrified of Selah, so it wasn’t hard to convince him,” Anna shrugged, her eyes meeting a patron over Edmund’s shoulder. “If you’ll excuse me,” she left him standing at the bar, unmoored. Things were easier when they were cautiously flirtatious, but now they had crossed the line into tense. She was back in only a moment, the pitcher closer to empty. 

“I should go,” he said, mostly to himself, still not sure why he was lingering. She paused in the act of refilling the pitcher and turned back to him, her eyes focused on the counter in front of him. 

“I hope you know that I don’t blame you for the attainder,” she said delicately, as if she hadn’t thought about the words before she spoke them. “I know that Richard pressured you into signing it.” 

“I was doing my job,” Edmund said firmly. “There’s no reason why I should be absolved of blame for the trouble I caused you.” 

“But that trouble is over now, isn’t it?” she asked, and Edmund was suddenly remembered of the first time he set foot in this tavern, intent on inviting her to Whitehall, to extend his friendship and protection. 

How far they had come, and yet how little they had both changed. 

“Yes,” he said finally, on a breath. “That’s all over now.” 

***

She found him at the stables the next day, brushing Andromeda pensively. He had come here both to be alone and under the possibility that she’d know to come looking for him here. He wasn’t sure which he wanted more, but now that she was here, he was aware of the comfort solitude could have brought him. 

“Isabella said you were here,” she said as an explanation. She was holding a short sword under her arm, the scabbard hanging over her shoulder like a bag. At his questioning glance, she lowered it. “When I was in the Continental camp, Caleb would take me into the woods and spar with me sometimes, just in case I had to fight. I couldn’t get a pistol, so a sword was the best I had,” she looked down at it affectionately and laughed. “Ben - Ben never would have allowed it if he knew. You see, he was obsessed with keeping me safe, with making sure my role in the war as a woman was proper, so I couldn’t get into trouble. But Caleb knew that if our camp was attacked, even the women would have to fight.” 

“Why are you telling me this?” he asked. 

“Because I haven’t picked up a sword since the war ended, and I miss it.” 

Her meaning washed over him suddenly. “You want me to spar with you?” 

“If you would,” she said, fixing her eyes on anything but him. 

“Mrs. Strong, a woman handling a sword is not proper,” he was struggling with what to say, how to tell her he hadn’t touched a sword since long before the war ended. She scowled at the usage of her last name, but didn’t comment on it.

“Which is why I came to you, a man I trust,” she said firmly. “Besides, I’m still a woman in this town, without the protection of a husband.” 

“Do you need protection?” he asked in a rush, suddenly trying to remember where he kept his pistols. “Is that why you’re here?” He was beside her in a moment, his hand automatically reaching for her elbow. 

“Edmund -” she said his name carefully, as if still waiting for him to reprimand her for using it. “You’ve known me long enough to know that I can take care of myself. I’m just here for the practice.” Again, he heard what she didn’t say; she was here to spend time with him. 

His instincts, his paranoia, told him to decline, to go back to Whitehall and spend the rest of the day reading and determinedly not thinking about Anna Strong. But his damn traitorous mouth sighed and said, “Let’s go to the paddock.” 

He had an old sparring sword in his stables, kept there because he had nowhere else to keep it. She watched him test the weight of the sword, an excited grin on her face; the same kind of grin she had when she went riding. He carefully watched as she pulled the sword from its scabbard, tossing the piece of leather to the side absently. 

“Now, what did Brewster teach you?” he asked nervously, anything to get her to stop staring at him like that. “Show me your stance.” 

She claimed she needed the practice, that she was rusty, but her stance was perfect, and as Edmund worked her through the very simple basics, he realized that she was severely underselling herself; she was good, if a little unsure of herself. 

By the time the sun was high in the sky, Edmund finally stepped forward and held out his own practice sword to meet hers, a tacit permission to spar; for the first time, she hesitated, her sword still up to meet the edge of his own. 

“This is what you wanted,” he reminded her, and the sound of his voice spurred her into action. She moved slowly, tentatively, as if truly worried that she would hurt him. It didn’t take long before he had knocked the sword from her hand and held the edge a good distance from her neck. 

“Dead,” he said firmly. She stared at him, her jaw tight. “You’re trying to be nice, Mrs. Strong,” he told her. “Don’t.” 

She ducked underneath his sword to retrieve her sword, touching the edge of his before pressing forward in an offensive attack. He blocked her easily, her next moves written all over her face. She pressed him back to the center of the paddock before he managed to knock the sword free of her hand again and press the tip of the dull sword very lightly against the bodice of her dress. 

“Dead.” 

They went on like that for a while, Edmund steadily defeating Anna’s efforts. He knew, because he knew her, because he knew, without a doubt, that she wouldn’t have come here to spar if she didn’t think she could win, that she was still holding back. 

When she failed to block an easy attack, instead of calling her dead, he pushed her back with his free hand instead. She glared at him, her sword still in her hand. He met her gaze unflinchingly. 

“You didn’t come here to lose, Mrs. Strong.” 

Her sword came at him so fast he almost couldn’t dodge it in time. He breathed a sigh of relief. Finally. 

“Don’t,” she lunged forward, toward his abdomen, and he cleanly met her blade with his own and pushed her back. “Don’t call me that.” 

“Mrs. Strong?” he asked, ducking out of the way to avoid an ill-planned swipe at his head with the flat of the blade. “That’s your name.” 

She took a moment to just glare at him that gave him an opening to push her again, this time by the shoulder. She met his push with her own force and slapped his hand out of the way. He suppressed a smile. They were on the verge of dissolving into a childish slap fight. 

“I hate it,” she panted, dropping her sword arm for just a moment to rest it. He wanted to scoff, to roll his eyes, but instead, he used the flat of his blade to knock her own from her hand and lifted his sword to her neck. 

“Then I suppose you should have gotten that divorce when you had the chance.” 

He didn’t mean to say it; he knew he said the wrong thing the moment his statement registered on her face. He had seen her temper before, when she argued for Selah’s release, but that was calm compared to the anger darkening her face now. 

“Nothing is ever enough for you, is it?” she asked, picking up her sword and stomping over to the discarded scabbard. 

“Enough for me?” he asked incredulously, following her. “Exactly what is it that you’re offering?” She shook her head, shoving the sword into its scabbard and putting it on her shoulder. He managed to barely catch her by the sleeve as she turned away from him. “For once, would you just tell me the bloody truth?” 

She turned back to him, wrenching her sleeve out of his grip. “What do you want to know?” she asked challengingly. 

“Why are you back in Setauket?” he asked. “I know you hated this place during the war, so why come back when you don’t have to?” 

She clenched her jaw, her chin jutting out. For a moment, he feared she wouldn’t say anything, that she would never answer his question. But finally, he saw the tightness around her mouth lessen. “I came back to make sure you were okay.” 

“Because I can’t take care of myself?” 

“Because you said you were going back to Scotland, and suddenly, you were living in the city you left in disgrace!” 

“You mean after you sacrificed me for your bloody cause?” 

“After I saved your life,” she pointed out sharply. “But as usual, all men are quick to skip over that in favor of their ego.” 

“That had -” he exhaled in disbelief, “That had nothing to do with my ego. You could have just told me about Abraham’s plot, but instead you humiliated me in front of the entire town. You made a fool of me -” 

“And if I told you of Abraham’s plot, would you have ever left?” she asked, searching his eyes for the answer. “Could I have ever made you leave after that?” he didn’t say anything; she didn’t give him the time. “No, you would have insisted on staying, on fighting for me, and you would be dead.” 

“I wouldn’t -” 

“You would.” 

He had so many questions, but if one question led to all of this, he wasn’t sure he had the stomach to ask the rest of them, but she was staring at him again, her eyes full of the fight he hadn’t been able to find while they were sword fighting. 

“I told myself a long time ago that I was never going to lie to you again,” her voice was still crackling, full of anger, of adrenaline, but her words were suddenly softer. “I told Ben I could no longer lie to a man who never lied to me.” 

“I feel like there’s a contradiction coming.” 

“You asked me, that night in York City, if I ever loved you.” 

“And you said no,” he remembered the night with frightening clarity. 

“I didn’t say anything,” she corrected him. “You assumed that meant no.” 

“Because why would a woman that loved me let me believe she didn’t,” it wasn’t a question, but a statement, his own deduction. 

“But I did,” he could hear the tears in her voice as the sun slipped behind a cloud and cast cooler shadows over them both. “But what could we do if I said yes?” 

“We could have left,” he exclaimed. “We could have gone to Scotland, been happy.” 

“The cause -” 

“Of course, the cause,” he spat. 

“It was all that I had,” she protested. A gust of wind blew through them both, pulling her loose hair over eyes. He wanted to move it from her vision, but she reached up before he could and tucked it behind her ear. 

“You could have had me,” he replied. “But that wasn’t enough.” 

“The war was bigger than me, than the both of us,” she said softly. “I was barely allowed any sort of standing in camp, I thought if I told you the truth you’d insist on staying with me, but I couldn’t leave with you, I couldn’t bring you to camp. I couldn’t ask you to change the color of your coat for a cause I would have died for. I couldn’t ask you to die for me.” 

“I would have -” 

“And that was exactly the problem,” she said softly. “I told myself I could live with the pain of not being with you, of never seeing you again, as long as you were safe.” She sniffed, and he realized, in the failing light of the afternoon as it faded into evening, that she was crying. “War takes everything from people. I thought it would take you from me.”

“Is it any different if I was an ocean away?” he asked bitterly. 

“You would be alive,” she insisted. “That was the most important.” 

“It wasn’t your decision!” he shouted. “It was my life, you had no right -” 

“No right to save it?” she retorted. “But I did. Would you rather be dead?” 

“That’s not the point -” 

“That’s exactly the point,” she argued, stepping toward him, her hair so long that when the wind blowed, it danced over his face. 

“And Selah?” he asked, sharply enough that she hesitated. 

Her eyes left his and settled on something far away. “What about Selah?” 

He reached for her hands and held them gently, trying to keep the anger in his voice and not in his grip. “All of this is maddening and romantic, but it means nothing if -”

“If I’m married,” she said definitively. “Selah and I are separated, not divorced. He told me I was free to do as I wished, just as he is, but I keep his name, his protection, and his property. If I ever decide to get a divorce, or to go back to Philadelphia, I could.” 

“And do you?” he asked. “Want to go back to Philadelphia?” 

She considered the question for a moment before she cleared her throat. “I found out that you were in York City during the war, did you know that?” 

He shook his head; she laughed, a chuckle completely devoid of mirth, and soldiered on. 

“Townsend sent it in an intelligence report,” she explained. “Ben assigned Mary to watch me day and night to make sure I didn’t leave camp for York City to see you. Imagine spending every moment of my day with a woman that loathed me,” she laughed again, a hint of amusement in her voice again. “But I looked, every day, for a way to leave camp. To get to you.” 

“But you didn’t?” 

“I couldn’t get into the city without a pass,” she said with a shrug. “So when I found out you were in Setauket, when I was with Selah in Philadelphia, the city was suddenly too crowded, too loud, too everything, and I couldn’t stand it. I missed the open air of camp, of Setauket.” 

She squeezed his hands gently before pulling her hands out. “Selah knew why I was coming back the second I mentioned Setauket,” she said. “I was sure no one had told him about...about our wedding, but he just never said. He never asked me if I loved you, probably because he knew what the answer was.” 

“And he just -” 

“He let me go,” she lifted her shoulders again, a laugh at the edge of her voice. He thought she had more to her story, but she just looked at him, as if waiting for him to say something, to finally say something profound instead of challenging her. But he wasn’t sure what to say. 

“Are you going to do the same thing?” she asked. 

***

“You know,” Edmund said softly, later that night, tilting his head toward Anna, who was staring up at the stars, a gentle smile on her face. “When you told me you were going to marry me, I was convinced I was dreaming. Every day I woke up and had to check, and double check, to see if I was truly awake.” 

“Edmund -”

“And the day of our wedding, I saw,” he hesitated for a moment, and her hand came to rest on top of his own, in the grass, “I saw when you decided to pull away from me. And I remember thinking, ‘this is what waking up must feel like,’ and I have been painfully awake ever since.” 

She pressed a gentle kiss to his shoulder, the only bit of him she could reach, and settled back to stare up at the sky with him. “Are you awake now?” she asked. 

“God, I hope so,” he breathed, tightening his hold on her hand. He felt a lump in his throat and breathed past it, raising his arm to trace a constellation into the sky. “That’s Andromeda.” 

“Will you be happy?” she asked, her eyes still directed at the sky. “With me here with you, but not as your wife?” 

He propped himself up on his elbow and surveyed her worried face in the dark. Softly, he pressed a tender kiss to her lips, smiling when her hand came to rest on his cheek, as it so often did when she was happy. “This is more than I ever thought to hope for.” 

She released a soft laugh into the darkness as he settled beside her again. “Now show me where that new planet is supposed to be.”


End file.
